Keep Your Distance

I am a slight fan of Christian Kane's, I saw him from the TV show Angel, so when I was looking for a movie, I noticed him on the cover and even though I wasn't familular with the actors, also I wasn't sure about the story, but I figured I should give it a shot. So I went ahead and rented it and just watched it tonite and over all, I'd say that it was a good attempt for a thriller, but it was pretty average.

Basically this radio host, David, has caught his wife cheating with another woman. Melody has just turned her boyfriend's, Sean, proposal down in public, but when Melody runs out to skip humiliation, she gets hit by a car and David helps her, so when he finds out about his wife, he drinks and gets thrown in jail, and to return the favor, Melody bails him out and they develop a friendship discovering that there might be people out to hurt them.

Keep Your Distance like I said was an average thriller that could've been better, but from what I'm reading, the director is still pretty new at movies, so I'm going to give him a chance, because this wasn't a bad movie at all. So if you come across it, you might want to check it out, you never know, you may love it or you may hate it, but just give it a shot.

5/10

I have a strong suspicion that many of the glowing reviews for this film come from shills. If not, then I'm baffled. As my friend said, "There went ninety minutes that I'll never get back."

The best part of the film is the title sequence, which was very slick and set the right suspenseful mood. After that, things went quickly downhill. The acting is workmanlike, the script is full of clumsy dialogue, and the direction is riddled with embarrassing clichés. (For instance, during the final showdown, which of course takes place in a dark house during a thunderstorm, we are treated to a flash of lightning suddenly revealing the silhouette of someone on the doorstep -- twice!)

"Keep Your Distance" tries to be a character-driven suspense film, but the problem is that the characters are insubstantial and unlikable and there is no suspense. I knew who the culprit was from the beginning, simply due to Ebert's "law of economy of characters," but I didn't know why. At the end of the film, I still didn't know why. The clues that we are given, when they are finally deciphered by the characters, turn out to be mostly irrelevant.

Keep Your Distance is about a talk show host (David) and a drug saleswoman (Melody) who get caught up in several scandals, including their own. Melody has a possessive and rich boy friend who gives everyone the willies. David gets letters that show him things about his life and he confides in Melody who he meets by chance, and they help each other through some tough times as friends. As things start to pan out some clues start to give away the twists that occur at the end. A class A film technically with lots of good scenes. Acting was very good and the characters where believable. In the end, the letters spell out a lame plot as the characters have to explain it all to the audience.

Was very impressed with this indie film that looked and felt like such a "big budget" effort. Gil Bellows is fabulous as the lead. He plays a man with a charmed life whose world gets rocked by an anonymous interloper. The veneer cracks for several of the leading characters, who seem to lead charmed lives as well. The beautiful socialite wife. The trust fund baby and his powerful father. The plot is clever. A mystery meticulously crafted to keep you engaged to the end. Loved the music, too. Bravo to Stu Pollard's second big film effort. I liked "Nice Guys Sleep Alone" but "Keep Your Distance" catapults Pollard into a different league for film-making.

I have this film for a while, but I've never seen it until today. I haven't known much about it, I just picked it because of Christian Kane, 'cause I adore that man since I've fell in love with twin shows Angel and Buffy. I love his looks, his voice, his act - he's the real deal. So I thought it will worth a shot. And today I wanted to watch something in the evening, and I hadn't got anything I haven't had seen yet besides this one. So I started to watch it, and while it started, I'd dropped by to IMDb to see what other people think about it. After some really low points and really bad reviews I almost dropped it, but after ten minutes it got my attention right away. The only reason I'm not mad because of the bad opinions that almost got me not to watch it is that this way I had a feeling all the way through the film that there will be a lame ending. And this way I wasn't so disappointed when it turned out that I was right. I don't want to spoil anybody's experience with the film, so I won't write anything about why it was bad. That's not the point anyway. The point is that Keep your distance could be a very good film if it had an another ending. It has an interesting story, for starters. It's not the most original one in the history of movies, but a quite good one. There was good directing, very good actors who played very colorful, vivid characters, not commonplace, black-and-white, boring persons like in most of the Hollywood films, and there was a well-adjusted tension in the film. And then, int the end, in about 5 minutes, they ruined it all with a petty, cheesy closing. I got the feeling like the makers had got bored in the end or had ran out of time, and they had just thrown the first thing they got in mind to the end of the film. So yes, it's not a good film, but in my opinion it's just because of the ending. Whitout the last 5 minutes I would've given 7-8/10 to it. But this way it's not more than 5. Anyway, it was worth to be seen, and I kinda liked it even this way, but it could've been so much better. (And and least Christian Kane had some pleasant singing-scenes, and one always should appreciate him singing...)